I had an epiphany. At the Park.
My children and I had been tearing it up, alone at the small park, when another family showed up. A Dad and two sons.
My oldest child’s play changed immediately.
He was distracted, interested. He went through the motions with me but his eyes remained glued on that family.
And then he wandered over. Still observing, not close enough to them for me to call him back. Watching.
I ran after my other children, tagging them, laughing, but my mind was split. My heart guarded. What was he going to do? What was he thinking? Was this going to be a stepping stone to healthy interaction with other kids at the park, or a lesson in attachment?
This is what makes parenting our kids hard. Normal situations aren’t ever normal. Some of the signs and behaviors are text book. Sometimes we know exactly where a situation is going and why it’s headed that way, but many, many times we do not. Our kids’ life experiences are so very, very different than ours. It changes them developmentally in ways we won’t ever fully understand.
How do we lead them from where they are now to where they need to be when we don’t really understand where they are now?
That’s why I watched.
I watched my son as he inched closer to the other family. This wasn’t just a normal child seeing another kid on the playground and wanting to join them. No, there was something more, but what? Where was he now? How could I help him move closer to a healthy interaction with this family?
Was it the dad that drew him? Or, the family unit as a whole? Did he think they could give him something I couldn’t? If so, what and why?
None of this is normal. And that’s when the epiphany hit. I will have to be figuring out my son for the rest of his childhood. He’s a beautiful soul, and life with him is good. That afternoon at the park was wonderful. We laughed, had fun, chased, climbed. And all those experiences are just as much a part of him as the traumatic ones. His life, his neural synapses, are layers upon layers of good, bad and ugly. This means, my parenting won’t ever be normal, shouldn’t ever be default. And that’s what makes it hard, seeing the layers all mixed in together and helping him sort them out. It will be a lifetime of sorting. I just hope to do it well enough that I can help him become his own sorter.
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